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Tuesday, 3 April 2012

C64 16KB Cartridge Game Development Competition!

The second RGCD C64 16KB cartridge game development competition concluded on the 30th of November at midnight with 10 new games and three cartridge re-releases for the C64.RULES

So you can get started, the basic rules are laid out below:

The competition deadline is midnight GMT on the 30th November 2012 (this gives you over 6 months of development time).

There will be no competition unless a minimum of six entries are submitted by the deadline.

All submitted games must be in working 16KB cartridge ROM format (help is available to test ROM files on real hardware). Compression is allowed (and encouraged) but the final file size must not exceed 16KB (.crt (VICE) at 16.0 KB (16,464 bytes) or .bin (C64) at 16.0 KB (16,384 bytes)).

The games submitted do not necessarily need to be new, but must be your own work, not sold commercially or released in cartridge format previously. Cartridge ROM hacks will obviously not be accepted.

The scoring rules are very simple. Depending on the number of entries, the judges will award points to each game over several criteria (as discussed below). If there are 6 entries, 6 points go to the best, then 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 to the worst.

If a panel member has entered a game themselves, then the number of points that they can award will be adjusted (in this example, to 5) and they will not score their own release. This may initially seem harsh (and disadvantageous), but is countered by fairly taking a mean average based on how many people judged each game.

The criteria that each game will be evaluated on are:

Originality/Concept (quality of game design, taking into account originality),Execution (execution of design, taking into account controls, NTSC/GS compatibility),Presentation (quality of graphics, audio and overall presentation),Gameplay (a measure of how enjoyable the game is to play),Lasting Appeal (replay value, addictiveness).

When the panel has scored each game accordingly, the totals for each criteria will be divided by the number of judges to produce a mean average. These averages are then added together for each game to give a final score.

PRIZES

As well as a free copy of their submitted game on cartridge, there will also be prizes awarded to the entrants behind games that place 1st, 2nd and 3rd (as decided by the judging panel). Many thanks to Titan Computers/LEDWatch, Psytronik Software, Retream, Daniel Krusenbaum and Gareth Darby for their sponsorship!